Calipari not happy in Kentucky's 102-92 win over Sam Houston St.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - John Calipari expected growing pains.Welcomed them even. Told anyone who would listen it would take timefor No. 4 Kentucky to embrace and understand his "dribble drive"offense. Turns out, scoring points might be the least of Kentucky'sworries. Though the Wildcats were never really in danger during a 102-92win over Sam Houston State in the Cancun Challenge on Thursday,Calipari was hardly in the mood to celebrate after his team letanother opponent stick around thanks to a lackluster defensiveperformance that at times lacked energy, effort and intensity. "They have no urgency defensively, none," Calipari fumed afterhis team improved to 3-0. Watching Sam Houston State put together a record-settingperformance from behind the arc, it was hard to argue. The Bearkats made 18 of 38 3-pointers, including 11 by seniorguard Corey Allmond, to keep things interesting deep into thesecond half no matter how hard Calipari tried to get the Wildcatsto ramp up the defensive pressure. He called time-outs. He pulled players out. He yelled so loudlyhis voice echoed off the Rupp Arena rafters. None of it slowed Allmond, whose 11 3s were a Rupp Arena record. "I knew I was going to get a lot of open looks because of thefast pace they play," said Allmond, who finished with acareer-high 37 points. Sometimes, Allmond didn't even have to be open. During onesequence in the first half he knocked down an off-balancedouble-pump 3-pointer with Kentucky guard John Wall draped all overhim, then followed it up with another one from the corner in whichhe somehow got the ball over the outstretched hands of 6-foot-9Kentucky forward Patrick Patterson. "Sometimes we didn't bring it a lot on the defensive end andother times we just messed up on a lack of communication,"Kentucky forward Darius Miller said. "We didn't play how we wantedto." There were bright spots for the Wildcats. Freshman centerDeMarcus Cousins led Kentucky with 27 points and 18 rebounds andPatterson added 20 points and nine boards. The Wildcats shot 60percent from the floor and dominated the lane, outscoring theBearkats 48-18 in the paint. Wall finished with 21 points and sixassists and Eric Bledsoe scored 19 points for Kentucky. Still, it wasn't exactly the kind of crisp performance Calipariwas looking for after Kentucky narrowly escaped an upset bid byMiami (Ohio) on Monday, when Wall hit a last-second jumper to liftthe Wildcats to victory. There were no such heroics necessary this time, but the joy feltduring Wall's dynamic debut was replaced with a sense of unease asKentucky allowed another team to light it up from behind the3-point arc. Calipari called Miami's performance - the RedHawks made 15 of 263-pointers - somewhat of a fluke and said he was "ecstatic" afterthe Wildcats rallied from an 18-point deficit to win. He wasn't quite so cheery when Kentucky failed to put away theBearkats. Neither was his team after enduring a tirade from theircoach that Cousins called a "10" on a scale of 1-10. "We're not doing like we're supposed to," said Wall. "We'vestill got a lot of work to do. Until everybody takes pride in it,we're going to be struggling." Cousins played with the kind of effort he admits he's lacked attimes. "In high school I would come out running and walking up anddown the court and when I felt like playing, I did," Cousins said."Coach Calipari changed my mentality and I started to play a lotbetter. I just turned it up a notch." His teammates appeared to follow suit when the Wildcats openedthe second half with a 7-0 run to push the lead 60-42. Yet theysimply couldn't get free. Every time the Wildcats appeared to be ready to break it open,they would commit a turnover and the Bearkats would answer withanother deep jumper. Sam Houston State pulled to 81-73 with 6:58 remaining before onelast burst by the Wildcats pushed the lead to 94-77. The Bearkatsnever got within 10 the rest of the way. Still, it felt closer thanthat. "If we don't do better defensively folks (we are in trouble,"Calipari said. "Do you think we can score 100 against everybody?Because we're going to have to. They are going to score 100 againstus."

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